n the peasantry and the ruling class and between the peasantry and the land was changing in the sixteenth century. She describes the social and economic structure of the village as having a number of affluent families at the top, with different social levels below these families. The movement of the Daguerre family from one region to another was an uncommon act, as Davis notes, and the reason for this was related to property as well, since it was common for the male heirs to remain near their family's property. Davis speculates that the reason for the move may have been fear of the warfare taking place in the Basque region where the family lived first, or of the plague that also passed through the area. Clearly times were hard and the dangers were many.
The society depicted by Davis was the culmination of recent change as the vast demesnes of the feudal lords were being dismantled and parceled out to the peasants:
Because of the fortuitous ways in which peasant holdings accumulated, the individual peasant was apt to farm bits and pieces all over the estate or the village (Winston and Winston 16).
The peasant gained a right to a plot of land by working it for a number of years, and the right of inheritance was all the more important to the peasantry because it was something new to them--now they had something to pass from generation to generation.
Martin Guerre marries Bertrande in the village of Artigat, and Davis makes clear the position of women in a peasant village at that time:
As best we can see, Bertrande had spent her childhood with at least one brother and close to her mother's side, learning to spin and do other woman's work. Girls in Artigat and nearby villages were sometimes sent out to service in another house
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